AMATEUR GUNNERS

Sub-titled 'The Great War Adventures, Letters and Observations of Alexander Douglas Thorburn'. At the end of WWI, Alexander Thorburn left his role as an artillery officer and went straight back to civilian life, but in 1933 he published a volume of engagingly written memoirs. These have now been reissued with the addition of a recently discovered collection of letters which throw an interesting new light on his wartime experiences. Serving in France, Salonica, Palestine and then France again, Thorburn's concern is always first and foremost with the horses which were used for transportation of men, artillery and supplies, often in remote theatres over terrain without adequate tracks. A vivid memory is the voyage to Valletta with 600 horses on board, inadequate ventilation, and a prohibition on throwing manure overboard lest their position might be given away. Tragedy and comedy are often mixed. At Vimy Ridge, awaiting the arrival of Canadian troops, the battalion captured a "suspected spy" in a gun pit, only to find that he is the Canadian padre. Thorburn's letters from Salonica praise the spectacular landscape and include a letter to "Dear Mama" in 1917 in which the cavalry hears of the "great destruction of Hun submarines". Meanwhile Thorburn and his comrades are preparing to "ride up the valley to see a boar hunt organised by the Serbian crown prince". A week of night marching follows, with the horses struggling to haul strings of guns and wagons over ditches and fords. In March he complains to his mother that she has not sent his tropical kit, but "Choc cakes excellent." There is often physical hardship, and in Palestine at the Battle for Jerusalem he operates a 4-gun howitzer battery on a 3000 foot hill with ten inches of icy rain falling. Finally back in France, the 74th (Yeomanry) Division is employed in the exhausting task of advancing against the Hindenburg line. 228pp, photos.